he might have been the identical Vilikins, unexpectedly recovered from
the effects of the "cup of cold pison," or prematurely resurrected from
the "same grave," wherein he had been disposed by the "cruel parient" by
the side of the lamented "Dinah."

"My friends, don't interrupt the concert--too ral li, too ral li, too
ral li la. I'll explain presently--with a too ral li, too ral li, too
ral li la. I'm delighted to meet you--allow me to introduce myself--ral
li la--I am a professional--loo ral li, loo ral li--man--ral li la--my
name is Moses Overdale--with my loo ral li, loo ral li, loo ral li la."

Here he stopped, evidently by a violent exertion, and shook hands with
each of the others, and afforded such a view of his personal appearance
as satisfied the individual of the solitary optic, and his companion of
the vegetable leg, that they had fallen in with another original--added
to the fact, with which they were already well acquainted, that he had a
powerful, though not very controllable voice. Other things about the
newly-discovered person showed him to be a man far above, or below, or,
at least, differing from, the common run of people one meets in a
railroad-car. His face, had it been visible to the naked eye, through
the surrounding thicket of hair, might have passed for good-looking; but
the hirsute crop which flourished about his head was something really
remarkable. If each hair had possessed as many roots as a scrub oak
sapling, and had grown the wrong way, with the roots out, there couldn't
have been more; or if each individual hair had been grafted with a score
of thrifty shoots, and each of them, in turn, had given off a multitude
of sandy-colored sprouts, and each separate sprout had taken an
unconquerable aversion to every other sprout, and was striving to grow
in an independent direction of its own, there wouldn't have been a more
abundant display of hair, growing towards a greater variety of hitherto
unknown points of compass. It was so long that it concealed his neck and
shoulders, and you could only suppose he had a throat from the certainty
that he had a mouth. And even the mouth was in its turn ornamented with
an overhanging moustache, of a subdued rat-color, which also was long,
running down the corners of the jaw, and joining the rest of the beard
on the neck below. A shirt-collar, turned down over his coat, was dimly
visible whenever the wind was strong enough to lift the superincumbent
hair.